There is contrast to the belief that all energy and matter came into existence after the Big Bang. If we wish to understand the way the Greeks and other philosophers view our environment, we need to study the data that was collected by them. This book sees our portrayal of reality as having its departure point in concrete systems by which means of conceptual systems result in abstracted systems. This data must be sorted and information must now (...) be surveyed, structured, and analysed to find qualities and connections between the different aspects systems thinking. This has led to the theory for 'Living Systems'. It gives examples of applications which a basis for further studies of systems can be formed. The Internet now provides a major advantage to the retrieval of statistical information and opens a means for the future exploration and verification of how systems work. (shrink)

Millers Living Systems Theory (LST) is known to be very comprehensive. It comprises eight nested hierarchical levels. It also includes twenty critical subsystems. While Millers approach has been analyzed and applied in great detail, some problematic features remain, requiring further explication. One of these is the relationship between reduction and emergence in LST. There are at least four relevant possibilities. One is that LST exhibits neither clear reductionism nor emergence, but is essentially neutral in this regard. Another (...) is that the apparent comprehensiveness of LST is illusory, as the approach remains vulnerable to reduction that could ultimately reduce it to a shadow of its present self. The charge of reductionism has been made by critics leading Miller to defend this theory vehemently as nonreductionist in nature. A third possibility is that LST is not reductionist, but is in fact an emergent theory. Miller makes this claim quite strongly. A fourth possibility, and in some ways the most analytically problematic, is that LST exhibits evidence of both reductionism and emergence simultaneously. Some critics might see this fourth situation as evidence of a troubling paradox or anomaly that must be resolved before further progress can be made in the explication and application of LST. The purpose of the paper is to remove this apparent anomaly. The paper removes this anomaly by differentiating between new-variable emergence and transformational emergence. No concrete evidence is found to contradict Milers claim of emergence in LST, and thus no true anomaly exists. (shrink)

It is proposed that the Darwinian theoretical approach and account of living systems has not yet been clearly given. A first approximation to this is attempted, focussing on behavior in evolving environments. A theoretical terminology is defined emphasizing the mutuality of organism and environment and the existence of biologically theoretical entities.

The autopoietic theory and the enactive approach are two theoretical streams that, in spite of their historical link and conceptual affinities, offer very different views on the nature of living beings. In this paper, we compare these views and evaluate, in an exploratory way, their respective degrees of internal coherence. Focusing the analyses on certain key notions such as autonomy and organizational closure, we argue that while the autopoietic theory manages to elaborate an internally consistent conception of (...) living beings, the enactive approach presents an internal tension regarding its characterization of living beings as intentional systems directed at the environment. (shrink)

A new advanced systems theory concerning the emergent nature of the Social, Consciousness, and Life based on Mathematics and Physical Analogies is presented. This meta-theory concerns the distance between the emergent levels of these phenomena and their ultra-efficacious nature. The theory is based on the distinction between Systems and Meta-systems (organized Openscape environments). We first realize that we can understand the difference between the System and the Meta-system in terms of the relationship between a (...) ‘Whole greater than the sum of the parts’ and a ‘Whole less than the sum of its parts’, i.e., a whole full of holes (like a sponge) that provide niches for systems in the environment. Once we understand this distinction and clarify the nature of the unusual organization of the Meta-system, then it is possible to understand that there is a third possibility which is a whole exactly equal to the sum of its parts that is only supervenient like perfect numbers. In fact, there are three kinds of Special System corresponding to the perfect, amicable, and sociable aliquot numbers. These are all equal to the sum of their parts but with different degrees of differing and deferring in what Jacques Derrida calls “differance”. All other numbers are either excessive (systemic) or deficient (metasystemic) in this regard. The Special Systems are based on various mathematical analogies and some physical analogies. But the most important of the mathematical analogies are the hypercomplex algebras, which include the Complex Numbers, Quaternions, and Octonions, with the Sedenions corresponding to the Emergent Meta-system. However, other analogies are the Hopf fibrations between hyperspheres of various dimensions, nonorientable surfaces, soliton solutions, etc. These Special Systems have a long history within the tradition since they can be traced back to the imaginary cities of Plato. The Emergent Meta-system is a higher order global structure that includes the System with the three Special Systems as a cycle. An example of this from our tradition is in the Monadology of Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. There is a conjunctive relationship between the System schema and the Special Systems that produce the Meta-system schema cycle. The Special Systems are a meta-model for the relationship between the emergent levels of Consciousness (Dissipative Ordering based on the theory of negative entropy of Prigogine), Living (Autopoietic Symbiotic based on the theory of Maturana and Varela), and Social (Reflexive based on the theory of John O’Malley and Barry Sandywell). These different special systems are related to the various existenitals identified by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time and various temporal reference frames identified by Richard M. Pico. We also relate the special systems to morphodynamic and teleodynamic systems of Terrence Deacon in Incomplete Nature to which we add sociodynamic systems to complete the series of Special Systems. (shrink)

Abstract.Growing interest in the origin of life, the physical foundations of biological theory, and the evolution of animal social systems has led to increasing efforts to understand the processes by which elements or living systems at one level of organizational complexity combine to form stable systems of higher order. J. Bronowski saw the need to extend or reformulate evolutionary theory to deal with the hierarchy problem and to account for the evolution of systems (...) of “stratified stability.” The hierarchy problem has become a matter of great interest also in nonequilibrium thermodynamic theory.An effort is made here to develop an abstract, phenomenological model, based on the laws of thermodynamics, to account for the origin and hierarchical evolution of living systems. It is argued that the principle of minimum entropy production, developed by I. Prigogine, applies generally to all thermodynamic systems and processes and is implicit in an extended and more complete formulation of the second law of thermodynamics. From this are derived a thermodynamic criterion and a principle of thermodynamic selection governing the formation of stable systems of “elements” of various levels of organization. Thermodynamic selection gives rise to the creation of “elements” having increasingly “open” characteristic structures which may combine spontaneously to form “social” or crystalline systems capable of growing and reproducing themselves through processes of fissioning or budding. Such simple, self‐reproducing systems are capable of evolving by natural selection, which is seen to be a special case of the more general process of thermodynamic selection. The principle of natural selection, thus formulated, has the character of a fundamental physical law. Self‐reproducing systems with suitably open hereditary programs may combine to form stable social systems, which may grow and reproduce as a unit. In this way self‐reproducing systems of increasing hierarchical order, size, and organizational complexity may evolve through processes of thermodynamic (natural) selection. Some implications of this open‐ended model and opportunities for testing its empirical and theoretical utility are explored. (shrink)

(2013). Systems Theory, Arrogant and Humble. World Futures: Vol. 69, The Complexity of Life and Lives of Complexity, pp. 332-344.

If the problem of the origin of life is conceptualized as a process of emergence of biochemistry from proto-biochemistry, which in turn emerged from the organic chemistry and geochemistry of primitive earth, then the resources of the new sciences of complex systems dynamics can provide a more robust conceptual framework within which to explore the possible pathways of chemical complexification leading to living systems and biosemiosis. In such a view the emergence of life, and concomitantly of natural (...) selection and biosemiosis, is the result of deep natural laws (the outlines of which we are only beginning to perceive) and reflects a degree of holism in those systems that led to life. Further, such an approach may lead to the development of a more general theory of biology and of natural organization, one informed by semiotic concepts. (shrink)

Background This analysis is about practical living bioethics and how law, ethics and sociology understand and respect children’s consent to, or refusal of, elective heart surgery. Analysis of underlying theories and influences will contrast legalistic bioethics with living bioethics. In-depth philosophical analysis compares social science traditions of positivism, interpretivism, critical theory and functionalism and applies them to bioethics and childhood, to examine how living bioethics may be encouraged or discouraged. Illustrative examples are drawn from research interviews (...) and observations in two London paediatric cardiac units. This paper is one of a series on how the multidisciplinary cardiac team members all contribute to the complex mosaic of care when preparing and supporting families’ informed consent to surgery. Results The living bioethics of justice, care and respect for children and their consent depends on theories and practices, contexts and relationships. These can all be undermined by unseen influences: the history of adult-centric ethics; developmental psychology theories; legal and financial pressures that require consent to be defined as an adult contract; management systems and daily routines in healthcare that can intimidate families and staff; social inequalities. Mainstream theories in the clinical ethics literature markedly differ from the living bioethics in clinical practices. Conclusion We aim to contribute to raising standards of respectful paediatric bioethics and to showing the relevance of virtue and feminist ethics, childhood studies and children’s rights. (shrink)

Exclusively focused on data that are consistent with the proposed ideas, the target article misses an opportunity to review data that are inconsistent with them. Weaknesses of the emulation theory become especially evident when one tries to incorporate physiologically realistic muscle and reflex mechanisms into it. In particular, it fails to resolve the basic posture-movement controversy.

An explanatory gap exists between physics and experience, raising the hard problem of consciousness: why are certain physical systems associated with an experience of an external world from an internal perspective? The living mirror theory holds that consciousness can be understood as arising from the computational interaction between a living system and its environment that is required for the organism's existence and survival. Maintaining a boundary that protects the system against destructive forces requires an interaction between (...) the organism and its outside world that can be cast in terms of Bayesian inference. The living mirror theory holds that this computational interaction results in statistical properties of the material world that are, in the absence of life, only implicit, becoming explicit in informational terms. This is held to give rise to the beliefs in qualities that constitute consciousness. Consciousness is therefore a necessary feature of all living systems as, in a world governed by the second law of thermodynamics, survival depends on the construction of beliefs regarding the potentially destructive forces in the outside world. From this perspective, consciousness is shown to be not a property of the brain in particular but instead to be a necessary feature of the life process itself. (shrink)

Living systems are characterized by unique properties that make them resistant to the ``information-processingperspective'' of traditional cognitive science.This paper details those unique properties andoffers a new theoretical framework forunderstanding the behavior of living systems.This framework leans heavily on ideas fromgeneral systems theory (specifically Bateson'sinteractionist perspective), semiotics, andMerleau-Ponty's phenomenology. The benefits ofusing this framework are illustrated withexamples from two different domains: immunologyand verbal interaction.

This volume gathers scholars from ecology, biochemistry, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, anthropology and philosophy to discuss how Gregory Bateson's thinking might lead to a reframing of central problems in modern science.

The present volume aims at giving a discussion ot the problems ot reductionism in contemporary life sciences. It contains six papers which deals with reduction/reductionism in different fields ot biological research. Also, the holistic perspective, 1. e. the systems view, is discussed in some ot the papers. The message ot this discussion Is that - whereas reductionism is indeed an important strategy - the systems approach is needed. It is argued by some ot the authors that organisms are (...) complex systems and not just heaps of molecules, 50 that the analytical method does not suffice. Recent developments in systems theory offer the possibility to install a more comprehensive view ot living systems what can be seen particularly in the field ot evolutionary biology. It is true that any organismic activity is molecular, this is to say that it is based on molecular mechanisms. But it is also true that the whole organism displays certain patterns ot behavior which are not just molecular. Any organism can be described as a system ot different levels ot organization different levels ot order and complexity - and it is important, theretore, to study all ot the organizational levels and to see their peculiarities. It should be obvious, however, that there is not one problem ot reduction/reductionism, but that there are many problems linked together and that these problems appear at different levels ot biological research and bio philosophical reflections. (shrink)

This article considers naturalistic analyses of the concepts of health and disease in light of the possibility of constructing novel living systems. The article begins by introducing the vision of synthetic biology as the application of engineering principles to the construction of biological systems, the main analyses of the concepts of health and disease, and the standard theories of function in artefacts and organisms. The article then suggests that reflection on the possibility of artefactual organisms amounts to (...) a challenge to the functional theories of health and disease proposed by Wakefield and Boorse. More specifically, Wakefield and Boorse's theories are reconstructed as responses to a dilemma concerning how to allow for the ascription of health and disease to artefactual organisms without at the same time opening up the possibility of diseased nonliving artefacts such as cars and computers. It is argued that neither response will enable us to ascribe health and disease to artefactual organisms, because both theories, in order to rule out the possibility of ascribing health and disease to nonliving artefacts, make such ascriptions conditional on having a natural-selection history or being part of a species which has been designed by evolution. (shrink)

Minimal genetic pre-formationism is defended, in that primacy is ascribed to DNA in the structuring of molecules through molecular codes. This together with the importance of such codes for stability and variation in living systems makes DNA categorically different from other causal factors. It is argued that post-transcriptional and post-translational processing in protein synthesis does not rob DNA of this structuring role. Notions of structuring causal powers that may vary in degree, of arbitrary molecular codes that are more (...) or less realized, of partial templating and of genetic information as a subspecies of mechanistic information are brought in to support this and to rival causal and semantic notions of information. It is concluded that the primacy of genes in their structuring of molecules goes together with parity between genes and non-genetic causal factors in regulation of living systems. This is seen to hold independently of the radical reconceptualization of organism cum environment that has been suggested in developmental systems theory. (shrink)

With the aid of new technologies, science has found creative ways to investigate nature. Through the use of a highly sensitive, low-noise, cooled camera, previously applied to exploring dark sky, scientific laboratories around the world have been looking at the weak emission of light from cells in a living organism. Biophoton emission, as so-called by Fritz Albert Popp, was introduced to science in the 1920s by the Russian embryologist Alexander Gurwitsh, receiving the name of mitogenetic rays. Since 1974, systematic (...) research carried out by Fritz Albert Popp and his colleagues in many parts of the world has been focused on conducting experiments and working towards a biophoton theory to inform us about its properties. One of the main hypotheses is that biophoton plays an important biological function and due to evidence of coherence of its light, i.e. a high degree of order with an extremely stable intensity (Bischof 2005), biophoton is supposed to operate as a biological laser, able to manage a network of information in the organism as well as to form electromagnetic field patterns. Interactive art based on digital technologies uses numerical data to produce interactions between our body and lit pixels on the screen. Maybe, with the correct tools and equations, data from subtle fields of energy in living systems could be used to connect different systems of information, conjugating micro and macro levels of energy. This paper intends to examine biophoton research as a possible model to interactive art and consider the way it could lead to new forms for perception and consciousness. (shrink)

A study of shifts in scientific strategies for measuring the living body, especially in dynamic systems theory: sheds light on Hegel's concept of measure in The Science of Logic, and the dialectical transition from categories of being to categories of essence; shows how Hegel's speculative logic anticipates and analyzes key tensions in scientific attempts to measure and conceive the dynamic agency of the body. The study's analysis of the body as having an essentially dynamic identity irreducible to (...) measurement aims to contribute to reconceiving the body, in a way that may be helpful to overcoming dualism. (shrink)

Within the field of systems theory, the term robustness has typically been applied to different contexts such as automatic control, genetic networks, metabolic pathways, morphogenesis, and ecosystems. All these systems involve either man-made machines, or living organisms. In this chapter, we will consider music as a peculiar complex system, involving both the realm of machines and the realm of biology. We will discuss some of the properties of music experience in terms of different attributes of robustness, (...) focusing in particular on stability, the property enabling a complex system to maintain its function against a wide range of external and internal changes. We will provide examples of the human ability of isolating and maintaining stable information within the perceptual flow and despite changes in the external world that reach our perceptions, leading towards a characterization of robustness in music perception as referred both to the search for regularities and to the range of tolerance that perception admits to regularities. Finally, we will list four multiple interaction cycles that typically characterize music experience and that involve both internal properties of the organism and the environment. (shrink)

ArgumentIn this essay, I sketch a problem-based framework within which I locate the concept of “organism” in the system theories of Georg Ernst Stahl, Théophile Bordeu, and Paul-Joseph Barthez. Around 1700, Stahl coins the word “organism” for a certain concept of order. For him, the concept explains the form of order of living bodies that is categorically different from the order of other bodies or composites. At the end of the century, the “organism” as a specific form of order (...) becomes a major topos in many discourses. I will not so much focus on experiments and objects as on basic problems that contribute to the general framework of the concept of organism as a key concept of the vitalist movement between 1700 and 1800. For this purpose, I will investigate the combination of three explanatory tools. These tools refer to regulating agents, functional interactions, and stimulus-reactions-schemes within individual organic systems of forces. They are related to various themes – especially to energy, sensibility, and sympathy. I will retrace some aspects of these relations. (shrink)

The claim here is that semiosis is concomitant with life and not simply one of several possible adaptive mechanisms. Signs, particularly indices, serve as steering mechanisms for even the most primitive organisms, completing a circuit between the detection of energy sources and behavior that is conducive to acquiring those sources. Without that kind of agency, no form of life is possible. To show this, an understanding of the interrelation among energy, matter, information, and meaning is required, and how they are (...) interlaced in the notion of work. One specific thesis of the paper in this respect is that meaning is the propagating work of information. Peirce’s theory, with some modifications, can be used to articulate this account of things, and brings a powerful analytical tool to the problem. (shrink)

Why do we so often defend the very social systems that are responsible for injustice and exploitation? In A Theory of System Justification, John Jost argues that we are motivated to defend the status quo because doing so serves fundamental psychological needs for certainty, security, and social acceptance. We want to feel good not only about ourselves and the groups to which we belong, but also about the overarching social structure in which we live, even when it hurts (...) others and ourselves. Jost lays out the wide range of evidence for his groundbreaking theory and examines its implications for our communities and our democracy. Drawing on twenty-five years of research, he provides an accessible account of system justification theory and its insights. System justification helps to explain deep contradictions, including the feeling among some women that they don’t deserve the same salaries as men and the tendency of some poor people to vote for policies that increase economic inequality. The theory illuminates the most pressing social and political issues of our time—why has it been so hard to combat anthropogenic climate change?—as well as some of the most intimate—why do some black children prefer white dolls to black ones and why do some people stay in bad relationships? Jost’s theory has far-reaching implications, and he offers numerous insights that political activists and social justice advocates can use to promote change. (shrink)

Building on the original formulation of the autopoietic theory (AT), extended enactivism argues that living beings are autopoietic systems that extend beyond the spatial boundaries of the organism. In this article, we argue that extended enactivism, despite having some basis in AT’s original formulation, mistakes AT’s definition of living beings as autopoietic entities. We offer, as a reply to this interpretation, a more embodied reformulation of autopoiesis, which we think is necessary to counterbalance the (excessively) disembodied (...) spirit of AT’s original formulation. The article aims to clarify and correct what we take to be a misinterpretation of AT as a research program. AT, contrary to what some enactivists seem to believe, did not (and does not) intend to motivate an extended conception of living beings. AT’s primary purpose, we argue, was (and is) to provide a universal individuation criterion for living beings, these understood as discrete bodies that are embedded in, but not constituted by, the environment that surrounds them. However, by giving a more explicitly embodied definition of living beings, AT can rectify and accommodate, so we argue, the enactive extended interpretation of autopoiesis, showing that although living beings do not extend beyond their boundaries as autopoietic unities, they do form part, in normal conditions, of broader autopoietic systems that include the environment. (shrink)

One of the great challenges of the modern world is the control and management of complexity. After the infinitely large and the infinitely small, we once again find ourselves confronting an unfathomable infinite?the infinitely complex. With its capability for simulation, the computer has become a macroscope. It helps us understand complexity and act on it more effectively to build and manage the large systems of which we are the cells?companies, cities, economies, societies, ecosystems. Thanks to this macroscope, a new (...) vision of the world is emerging, based on a unified approach to the self-organization and evolution of complex systems. On the basis of this comprehensive vision, it becomes possible to describe the origin of a new form of life on Earth, a planetary macro-organism made up of human beings and machines, networks, and nations?a still-embryonic macro-organism that is trying to live in symbiosis with the planetary ecosystem. This new vision of the world brings together two complementary modes of analysis and action: the analytic method and the systemic approach. It can be called the unified theory of the self-organization and dynamics of complex systems. More concisely, one can propose the term symbionomics to describe the range of phenomena covered by this unified theory. Symbionomics can be defined as the study of the emergence of complex systems through self-organization, self-selection, coevolution, and symbiosis. Symbiotic relationships form through coevolution with other organisms or organizations, and collective properties emerge. This information is transmitted to succeeding generations through the memorization of structures and reproductive and evolutionary mechanisms by means of chemical or electronic coding or by the culture. A complex organization is born. From a symbionomic perspective, it is then possible to trace the essential phases of the emergence of a new form of life on Earth, a macrolife, of which humanity, this time, is not the evolutionary end point, but the starting point and catalyst. (shrink)

The Interdisciplinary Handbook of Perceptual Control Theory brings together the latest research, theory, and applications from W. T. Powers' Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) that proposes that the behavior of a living organism lies in the control of perceived aspects of both itself and its environment. Sections cover theory, the application of PCT to a broad range of disciplines, why perceptual control is fundamental to understanding human nature, a new way to do research on brain processes (...) and behavior, how the role of natural selection in behavior can be demystified, how engineers can emulate human purposeful behavior in robots, and much more. Each chapter includes an author biography to set the context of their work within the development of PCT. Presents case studies that show how PCT can be applied in different disciplines Illustrates the Test for the Controlled Variable (TCV) and the construction of functional models as fruitful alternatives to mainstream experimental design when studying behavior Shows how theory illuminates structure and functions in brain anatomy Compares and contrasts PCT with other contemporary, interdisciplinary theories. (shrink)

Mencius’s theory of the gongfu (or art) to be human and live a human life is not just a part of his philosophy, but an overall approach of his philosophy. That is, the primary purpose of his philosophy is to guide people along the right path of life rather than to offer a truth-telling account of reality. Understanding this fact has implications on how Mencius should be interpreted. It resolves puzzling purported logical fallacies in the text of Mencius, and (...) makes Mencius more coherent, intelligent, and plausible. It also implies that, although Mencius’s normative theory shares some features with other normative theories familiar to the West, such as utilitarianism, Kantian deontology, and virtue ethics, it should not be forced into any of these frameworks. The theory is distinct enough to be called a “gongfu ethics.”. (shrink)

The present article is an attempt to give - in the frame of the theory of the organism - environment system - a new interpretation to the role of efferent influences on receptor activity and to the functions of senses in the formation of knowledge. It is argued, on the basis of experimental evidence and theoretical considerations, that the senses are not transmitters of environmental information, but they create a direct connection between the organism and the environment, which makes (...) the development of a dynamic living system, the organism - environment system, possible. In this connection process the efferent influences on receptor activity are of particular significance, because with their help the receptors may be adjusted in relation to the parts of the environment which are most important in the achievement of behavioral results. Perception is the process of joining of new parts of the environment to the organism - environment system ; thus, the formation of knowledge by perception is based on reorganization of the organism - environment system, and not on transmission of information from the environment. With the help of the efferent influences on receptors each organism creates its own peculiar world which is simultaneously subjective and objective. The present considerations have far reaching influences as well on experimental work in neurophysiology and psychology of perception as on philosophical considerations of knowledge formation. (shrink)

In a fluent, clear, and lively style this translation by two of Maslov's junior colleagues brings the work of the late Soviet scientist S. Yu. Maslov to a wider audience. Maslov was considered by his peers to be a man of genius who was making fundamental contributions in the fields of automatic theorem proving and computational logic. He published little, and those few papers were regarded as notoriously difficult. This book, however, was written for a broad audience of readers and (...) describes elegant examples of applications in such fields as computer science, artificial intelligence, operations research, economic modeling, and biological modeling, among others. The book also brings to light the work by the American mathematician E. L. Post, which inspired Maslov's own work in the development of a general theory and which has been long neglected by mathematicial logicians and systems theorists in the United States. The book's first chapter introduces the Rules of the Game. Part I, Mathematics of Calculi, covers E. L. Post's canonical systems, deductive systems and algorithms, and probabilistic calculi and deductive information. Part II, Horizonal Modeling, takes up a "toy" economy, the calculi of technological possibilities, and the development of rules. Part III, Vertical Modeling, deals with the topics of "to fight and to search" and the consequences of the asymmetry of cognitive mechanisms. Vladimir Lifschitz is affiliated with the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University, and Michael Gelfond with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Texas, El Paso. Theory of Deductive Systems and Its Applicationsis included in the Foundation of Computing Series, edited by Michael Garey. (shrink)

This essay argues that the systemic turn in deliberative democracy has opened up avenues to think about disabled citizenship within discursive processes. I highlight the systemic turn’s recognition of the interdependence of individuals and institutions upon each other in a system as key to this project. This recognition has led to three transformations: a more generous account of deliberative speech acts and behaviors; recognition of the role of enclaves; and incorporating the role of discursive representatives. These changes normalize the participation (...) of cognitively disabled individuals and suggest institutional opportunities for more effective participation. (shrink)

Even the simplest known living organisms are complex chemical processing systems. But how sophisticated is the behaviour that arises from this? We present a framework in which even bacteria can be identified as capable of representing information in arbitrary signal molecules, to facilitate altering their behaviour to optimise their food supplies, for example. Known asion/Representation theory, this framework makes precise the relationship between physical systems and abstract concepts. Originally developed to answer the question of when a (...) physical system is computing, AR theory naturally extends to the realm of biological systems to bring clarity to questions of computation at the cellular level. (shrink)

Caring for unrepresented patients encompasses legal, ethical, and moral challenges regarding decision-making, consent, the patient’s values, wishes, best interest, and the healthcare team’s professional integrity and autonomy. In this article, I consider the impact of the aging population and the effects of the social determinants of health and suggest that without preventive intervention, the number of unrepresented patients will continue to increase. The health, social, and legal risk factors for becoming unrepresented require a multidisciplinary response. Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) bring healthcare (...) and legal professionals together to address risk factors and health-harming legal needs. The article discusses the role of MLPs in identifying at-risk individuals, providing preventive interventions, and providing support. I make recommendations and conclude that proactive MLPs offer a sustainable approach to the ethical challenges in caring for unrepresented patients by providing interventions to prevent individuals from becoming unrepresented. (shrink)

Historically, the sociology of emotion has been relatively long on theory and short on methods. This collection of articles seeks to remedy this by introducing new ways to capture the four factors of emotion, as articulated by Thoits : meaning, expression, label, and physiology. As a group, these studies reify existing dichotomies in the literature—that is, emotional experience versus emotional expression—and seek to reconcile them. Additionally, they all champion the use of mixed methods—either simultaneously or sequentially—adopting some combination of (...) direct or indirect observation, subjective understanding/experience, and physiological change. Using examples drawn for their own research, the authors provide new ways to capture emotion that will carry emotion scholars into the next four decades of research. (shrink)

Theorising about politics and society has never had firm and settled boundaries. In the past, political theorists have sometimes been moralists, sometimes moral philosophers; now apologists for the existing order, now social engineers; they have tried both to explain society and to discuss social values; and their explanations have been variously based on empirical generalisations, a priori assumptions about human nature or general metaphysical theories. Very few aspects of knowledge have been thought irrelevant to social enquiry, and no problem has (...) been isolated as its central and necessary concern. (shrink)

The author compares the theoretical elements of her grounded theory, Protecting Self: Experiencing Organizational Change, with autopoiesis, a biological theory of living systems. Autopoiesis, meaning self-production, is a closed system that recursively generates the same organization, components, and network of processes from which they are produced. A cautious extrapolation of theoretical similarities between the two theories is presented, including self-referentiality, self-maintenance, circularity, individuality, and the maintenance of identity. The author concludes that this comparison provides a thought-provoking (...) argument that supports the difficult process of individual and organizational learning, growth, and change. (shrink)

The relation between mental processes and brain activity is studied from the point of view of the theory of the organism-environment system. It is argued that the systemic point of view leads to a new kind of definition of the primary tasks of neurophysiology and to a new understanding of the traditional neurophysiological concepts. Neurophysiology is restored to its place as a part of biology: its task is the study of neurons as living units, not as computer chips. (...) Neurons are living units which are organised as metabolic systems in connection with other neurons; they are not units which would carry out some psychological functions or maintain states which are typical only of the whole organism-environment system. Psychological processes, on the other hand, are processes always comprising the whole organism-environment system. (shrink)

Scholars writing on theories of punishment generally try to answer two main questions: what human behaviour should be punished and why? Only cursorily do they concern themselves with the question as to how confident in the occurrence of criminal behaviour we must be prior to punishing—i.e., the question of the criminal standard of proof. Theories of punishment are ultimately theories about choices of action—in particular, about how to treat individuals. If this is correct, it seems that they should not overlook (...) one of the fundamental variables governing human decision-making: the uncertainty about the facts relevant to our acting. Now, the question as to whether existing theories of punishment require a standard of proof as high as ‘proof beyond a reasonable doubt’ is gaining increasing attention in the scholarship. However, scholars working on theories of punishment give little attention to a particular way in which human decision-making handles the problem of uncertainty. In our everyday lives, we often decide in a many-valued, rather than a binary, fashion. Instead of having a single evidential threshold, the satisfaction of which determines whether we act or stay put, we tend to adjust our actions to our degree of confidence in certain states of affairs. In other words, we decide based on a ladder of evidential thresholds: the features of our actions vary according to the evidential threshold that we have satisfied. Notably, criminal trials do not follow this structure and theorists generally take this departure for granted. Why shouldn’t trials work as ‘ex post facto bets,’ whereby the response that the state is willing to ‘wager’ correlates with the fact finder’s confidence in the defendant’s guilt? The paper explores this question; in particular, it assesses whether the main theories of punishment necessarily deliver a binary system of verdicts. The work is part of a long-term research project on the comparison between the binary and the many-valued models of the system of criminal verdicts. (shrink)

The theory of autopoiesis, that is systems that are self-producing or self-constructing, was originally developed to explain the particular nature of living as opposed to non-living entities. It was subsequently enlarged to encompass cognition and language leading to what is known as second-order cybernetics. However, as with earlier biological theories, many authors have tried to extend the domain of the theory to encompass social systems, the most notable being Luhmann. The pur-pose of this paper (...) is to consider critically the extent to which the theory of autopoiesis, as originally defined, can be applied to social systems-that is, whether social systems are autopoietic. And, if it cannot, whether some weaker version might be appropriate. It addresses this question by considering whether autopoiesis can be applied to the theoretical conceptions of Giddens and Bhaskar. It follows an earlier paper that evaluated Luhmann's autopoietic social theory. (shrink)

This book offers new essays exploring concepts and applications of nonideal theory in bioethics. Nonideal theory refers to an analytic approach to moral and political philosophy (especially in relation to justice), according to which we should not assume that there will be perfect compliance with principles, that there will be favorable circumstances for just institutions and right action, or that reasoners are capable of being impartial. Nonideal theory takes the world as it actually is, in all of (...) its imperfections. Bioethicists have called for greater attention to how nonideal theory can serve as a guide in the messy realities they face daily. Although many bioethicists implicitly assume nonideal theory in their work, there is the need for more explicit engagement with this theoretical outlook. A nonideal approach to bioethics would start by examining the sociopolitical realities of healthcare and the embeddedness of moral actors in those realities. How are bioethicists to navigate systemic injustices when completing research, giving guidance for patient care, and contributing to medical and public health policies? When there are no good options and when moral agents are enmeshed in their sociopolitical viewpoints, how should moral theorizing proceed? What do bioethical issues and principles look like from the perspective of historically marginalized persons? These are just a few of the questions that motivate nonideal theory within bioethics. This book begins in Part I with an overview of the foundational tenets of nonideal theory, what nonideal theory can offer bioethics, and why it may be preferable to ideal theory in addressing moral dilemmas in the clinic and beyond. In Part II, authors discuss applications of nonideal theory in many areas of bioethics, including reflections on environmental harms, racism and minority health, healthcare injustices during incarceration and detention, and other vulnerabilities experienced by patients from clinical and public health perspectives. The chapters within each section demonstrate the breadth in scope that nonideal theory encompasses, bringing together diverse theorists and approaches into one collection. (shrink)

Human experience is not confined to waking life. Do experiences in dreams matter? Humans are not the only living beings who have experiences. Does nonhuman experience matter? The Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu, writing during the late fourth and early fifth centuries C.E., argues in his work The Twenty Verses that these alternative contexts ought to inform our understanding of mind and world. Vasubandhu invites readers to explore experiences in dreams and to inhabit the experiences of nonhuman beings—animals, hungry ghosts, and (...) beings in hell. Other Lives offers a deep engagement with Vasubandhu’s account of mind in a global philosophical perspective. Sonam Kachru takes up Vasubandhu’s challenge to think with perspective-diversifying contexts, showing how his novel theory draws together action and perception, minds and worlds. Kachru pieces together the conceptual system in which Vasubandhu thought to show the deep originality of the argument. He reconstructs Vasubandhu’s ecological concept of mind, in which mindedness is meaningful only in a nexus with life and world, to explore its ongoing philosophical significance. Engaging with a vast range of classical, modern, and contemporary Asian and Western thought, Other Lives is both a groundbreaking work in Buddhist studies and a model of truly global philosophy. The book also includes an accessible new translation of The Twenty Verses, providing a fresh introduction to one of the most influential works of Buddhist thought. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill has often been charged with inconsistency in his social thinking. The reason given is usually that he tries to combine too many different traditions of thought into an ideological whole. Too deeply affected by his father and his severely purposeful early education ever to repudiate utilitarianism, he was yet too sensitive to disregard criticism of his inherited creed, and too open-minded to ignore areas of thought and experience generally allen to the utilitarian mind. Professor Robson, whose editing (...) of Mill’s works has already put social theorists and historians of ideas in his debt, disputes this view. He argues that, beneath Mill’s eclecticism, beneath his perhaps over-generous acknow-ledgements of his obligations to others, there is a basic unity of ideas. His discussion of the influences on Mill’s thought covers some fairly well-trodden ground but he brings a good deal of common sense to bear on an area where the excitement of the academic chase for sources has sometimes obscured the obvious. On the whole, he claims, the influence of Coleridge, the Suint-Simonians, Carlyle and Comte was limited; some of their specific ideas Mill accepted and used, but he was clearly aware of the differences of emphasis and context that did exist. Harriet Taylor and Tocqueville contributed more, the first by extending Mill’s vision of desirable social ends and by emphasising the difficulties of applying social theory in the world of practice, the second by his insights into democratic society and his demonstration of a proper sociological method. The deepest influence was, however, his early Benthamite upbringing and it is this life-long commitment to a utilitarian ethic that constitutes, for Professor Robson, the still, calm centre of his mind. There are other unifying ideas—his bias towards practicality and his constant concern with evolving a satisfactory methodology for the social sciences—but even these centred on a continual examination of the adequacies and inadequacies of his father’s doctrine. (shrink)

Long since, people tried to solve the mystery of the way that led to the appearance and propagation of living entities. However, no harmonious understanding of this mystery existed, because neither the scientifically grounded source minerals nor the ambient conditions were proposed and because it was groundlessly taken that the process of living matter origination is endothermal. The Life Origination Hydrate Theory (LOH-Theory) first suggests the chemical way capable of leading from the specified abundant natural minerals (...) to origination of multitudes of multitudes of simplest living entities and gives an original explanation for the phenomena of chirality and racemization delay. The LOH-Theory covers the period up to origination of the genetic code. The LOH-Theory is grounded on the following three discoveries based on the available information and on the results of our experimental works performed using original instrumentation and computer simulations. (1) There is the only one triad of natural minerals applicable for exothermal thermodynamically possible chemical syntheses of simplest living-matter components. (2) N-base, ribose, and phosphdiester radicals and nucleic acids as whole are size-compatible with structural gas-hydrate cavities. (3) The gas-hydrate structure arises around amido-groups in cooled undisturbed systems consisting of water and highly-concentrated functional polymers with amido-groups.The natural conditions and historic periods favorable for simplest living matter origination are revealed. The LOH-Theory is supported by results of observations, biophysical and biochemical experiments, and wide application of original three-dimensional and two-dimensional computer simulations of biochemical structures within gas-hydrate matrix. The instrumentation and procedures for experimental verification of the LOH-Theory are suggested. If future experiments are successful, they, possibly, could be the first step on the way to industrial synthesis of food from minerals, i.e., to execution of the work that is performed by plants. (shrink)

Context: The majority of contemporary enactivist work is influenced by the philosophical biology of Hans Jonas. Jonas credits all living organisms with experience that involves particular “existential” structures: nascent forms of concern for self-preservation and desire for objects and outcomes that promote well-being. We argue that Jonas’s attitude towards living systems involves a problematic anthropomorphism that threatens to place enactivism at odds with cognitive science, and undermine its legitimate aims to become a new paradigm for scientific investigation (...) and understanding of the mind. Problem: Enactivism needs to address the tension between its Jonasian influences and its aspirations to become a new paradigm for cognitive science. By relying on Jonasian phenomenology, contemporary enactivism obscures alternative ways in which phenomenology can be more smoothly integrated with cognitive science. Method: We outline the historical relationship between enactivism and phenomenology, and explain why anthropomorphism is problematic for a research program that aspires to become a new paradigm for cognitive science. We examine the roots of Jonas’s existential interpretation of biological facts, and describe how and why Jonas himself understood his project as founded on an anthropomorphic assumption that is incompatible with a crucial methodological assumption of scientific enquiry: the prohibition of unexplained natural purposes. We describe the way in which phenomenology can be integrated into Maturana’s autopoietic theory, and use this as an example of how an alternative, non-anthropomorphic science of the biological roots of cognition might proceed. Results: Our analysis reveals a crucial tension between Jonas’s influence on enactivism and enactivism’s paradigmatic aspirations. This suggests the possibility of, and need to investigate, other ways of integrating phenomenology with cognitive science that do not succumb to this tension. Implications: In light of this, enactivists should either eliminate the Jonasian inference from properties of our human experience to properties of the experience of all living organisms, or articulate an alternative conception of scientific enquiry that can tolerate the anthropomorphism this inference entails. The Maturanian view we present in the article’s final section constitutes a possible framework within which enactivist tools and concepts can be used to understand cognition and phenomenology, and that does not involve a problematic anthropomorphism. Constructivist content: Any constructivist approach that aims for integration with current scientific practice must either avoid the type of anthropomorphic inference on which Jonas bases his work, or specify a new conception of scientific enquiry that renders anthropomorphism unproblematic. (shrink)